invention of radio

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{{Use dmy dates|date=February 2025}}{{broader|History of radio}}

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The invention of radio communication was preceded by many decades of establishing theoretical underpinnings, discovery and experimental investigation of radio waves, and engineering and technical developments related to their transmission and detection. These developments allowed Guglielmo Marconi to turn radio waves into a wireless communication system.

The idea that the wires needed for electrical telegraph could be eliminated, creating a wireless telegraph, had been around for a while before the establishment of radio-based communication. Inventors attempted to build systems based on electric conduction, electromagnetic induction, or on other theoretical ideas. Several inventors/experimenters came across the phenomenon of radio waves before its existence was proven; it was written off as electromagnetic induction at the time.

The discovery of electromagnetic waves, including radio waves, by Heinrich Rudolf Hertz in the 1880s came after theoretical development on the connection between electricity and magnetism that started in the early 1800s. This work culminated in a theory of electromagnetic radiation developed by James Clerk Maxwell by 1873, which Hertz demonstrated experimentally. Hertz considered electromagnetic waves to be of little practical value. Other experimenters, such as Oliver Lodge and Jagadish Chandra Bose, explored the physical properties of electromagnetic waves, and they developed electric devices and methods to improve the transmission and detection of electromagnetic waves. But they did not apparently see the value in developing a communication system based on electromagnetic waves.

In the mid-1890s, building on techniques physicists were using to study electromagnetic waves, Guglielmo Marconi developed the first apparatus for long-distance radio communication.Bondyopadhyay, Prebir K. (1995) "[https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/4137304/?tp=&arnumber=4137304 Guglielmo Marconi – The father of long distance radio communication – An engineer's tribute"], 25th European Microwave Conference: Volume 2, pp. 879–85 On 23 December 1900, the Canadian-born American inventor Reginald A. Fessenden became the first person to send audio (wireless telephony) by means of electromagnetic waves, successfully transmitting over a distance of about a mile (1.6 kilometers,) and six years later on Christmas Eve 1906 he became the first person to make a public wireless broadcast.{{cite web|title=Milestones: First Wireless Radio Broadcast by Reginald A. Fessenden, 1906|url=http://ethw.org/Milestones:First_Wireless_Radio_Broadcast_by_Reginald_A._Fessenden,_1906#First_Wireless_Radio_Broadcast_by_Reginald_A._Fessenden.2C_1906|website=Engineering and Technology History Wiki (ethw.org)|access-date=29 October 2015}}{{cite journal|last1=Belrose|first1=John|title=Reginald Aubrey Fessenden and the Birth of Wireless Telephony|journal=IEEE Antennas and Propagation Magazine|date=April 2002|volume=44|issue=2|pages=38–47|url=http://fessendenmilestone.quartomese.com/Documents/FessendenWireless.pdf|access-date=29 October 2015|doi=10.1109/MAP.2002.1003633|bibcode=2002IAPM...44...38B|s2cid=771931}}

By 1910, these various wireless systems had come to be called "radio".

Wireless communication theories and methods previous to radio

{{See|Wireless telegraphy}}

Before the discovery of electromagnetic waves and the development of radio communication, there were many wireless telegraph systems proposed and tested.Sterling, Christopher H. & O'Dell, Cary (2011) The Concise Encyclopedia of American Radio, Routledge, p. 238 In April 1872 William Henry Ward received {{US patent|126356}} for a wireless telegraphy system where he theorized that convection currents in the atmosphere could carry signals like a telegraph wire.Sterling & O'Dell (2011), page 239 A few months after Ward received his patent, Mahlon Loomis of West Virginia received {{US patent|129971}} for a similar "wireless telegraph" in July 1872.Sterling, Christopher H. (ed.) (2003) Encyclopedia of Radio ( Volume 1) [https://books.google.com/books?id=Z4XJQD4O_TkC&pg=PA831 Page 831]Lee, Thomas H. (2004) The Design of CMOS Radio-Frequency Integrated Circuits [https://books.google.com/books?id=io1hL48OqBsC&pg=PA53 pp. 33–34]. The patented system claimed to utilize atmospheric electricity to eliminate the overhead wire used by the existing telegraph systems. It did not contain diagrams or specific methods and it did not refer to or incorporate any known scientific theory.

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In the United States, Thomas Edison, in the mid-1880s, patented an electromagnetic induction system he called "grasshopper telegraphy", which allowed telegraphic signals to jump the short distance between a running train and telegraph wires running parallel to the tracks.({{US patent|465971}}, Means for Transmitting Signals Electrically, US 465971 A, 1891 In the United Kingdom, William Preece was able to develop an electromagnetic induction telegraph system that, with antenna wires many kilometers long, could transmit across gaps of about {{convert|5|km|mi|1|abbr=off}}. Inventor Nathan Stubblefield, between 1885 and 1892,[https://eh.net/encyclopedia/the-history-of-the-radio-industry-in-the-united-states-to-1940/ "History of the Radio Industry in the United States to 1940"], by Carole E. Scott, State University of West Georgia (eh.net) also worked on an induction transmission system.

A form of wireless telephony is recorded in four patents for the photophone, invented jointly by Alexander Graham Bell and Charles Sumner Tainter in 1880. The photophone allowed for the transmission of sound on a beam of light, and on 3 June 1880, Bell and Tainter transmitted the world's first wireless telephone message on their newly invented form of light telecommunication.Carson, Mary Kay (2007) [https://archive.org/details/alexandergrahamb0000cars Alexander Graham Bell: Giving Voice To The World], Sterling Biographies, New York: Sterling Publishing Co., Inc., pp. 76–78. {{ISBN|978-1402732300}}. {{OCLC|182527281}}{{cite encyclopedia|author=Donald J. C. Phillipson; Tabitha Marshall; Laura Neilson|url=https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/alexander-graham-bell|title=Alexander Graham Bell|encyclopedia=The Canadian Encyclopedia|access-date=August 20, 2019}}

In the early 1890s Nikola Tesla began his research into high-frequency electricity. Tesla was aware of Hertz's experiments with electromagnetic waves from 1889 onO'Neill, James (1944) [https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015013060820&view=1up&seq=100 Prodigal Genius: The Life of Nikola Tesla], page 86Seifer, Marc (1996) Wizard: The Life and Times of Nikola Tesla, p. 1721 but doubted they existed, and agreed with the prevailing scientific thought at that time that they probably only travel in straight lines, making them useless for long range transmission.

Instead of using radio waves, Tesla's efforts were focused on building a conduction-based power distribution system,Carlson, W. Bernard (2013). Tesla: Inventor of the Electrical Age. Princeton University Press. {{ISBN|978-1400846559}}. pp. 178–79{{cite book |last=Orton |first=John |title=The Story of Semiconductors |year=2004 |publisher=Oxford University Press |location=Oxford, England |page=53}}{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=N2rNO6FX8o4C&q=hertz+many+published+results+interested+in+radio&pg=PA22|title=Radio: The Life Story of a Technology|author=Regal, Brian|date=2005|page=22|publisher=Bloomsbury Academic |isbn=9780313331671}} although he noted in 1893 that his system could also incorporate communication. His laboratory work and later large-scale experiments at Colorado Springs led him to the conclusion that he could build a conduction-based worldwide wireless system that would use the Earth itself (via injecting very large amounts of an electric current into the ground) as the means to conduct the signal very long distances (across the Earth), overcoming the perceived limitations of other systems.{{cite web|date=November 1, 2012|url=https://earlyradiohistory.us/tesla.htm|title=Nikola Tesla: The Guy Who DIDN'T 'Invent Radio'|work=(early radio history.us)|author=White, Thomas H.}} He went on to try to implement his ideas of power transmission and wireless telecommunication in his very large but unsuccessful Wardenclyffe Tower project.Regal (2005) p. 23

Development of electromagnetism

{{main|History of electromagnetism}}

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; Experiments and theory

File:Joseph Henry (1879).jpg|Joseph Henry

File:M Faraday Th Phillips oil 1842.jpg|Michael Faraday

File:Hans Christian Ørsted daguerreotype.jpg|Hans Christian Ørsted

Various scientists proposed that electricity and magnetism were linked. Around 1800 Alessandro Volta developed the first means of producing an electric current. In 1802 Gian Domenico Romagnosi may have suggested a relationship between electricity and magnetism but his reports went unnoticed.Sandro Stringari, Robert R. Wilson (2000), [http://www.lincei.it/pubblicazioni/rendicontiFMN/rol/pdf/S2000-02-03.pdf "Romagnosi and the discovery of electromagnetism"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131105114907/http://www.lincei.it/pubblicazioni/rendicontiFMN/rol/pdf/S2000-02-03.pdf |date=2013-11-05 }}", Rendiconti Lincei: Scienze Fisiche e Naturali, serie 9, vol. 11, issue 2, pp. 115–36.Roberto de Andrade Martins (2001), [http://ppp.unipv.it/Collana/Pages/Libri/Saggi/Nuova%20Voltiana3_PDF/cap4/4.pdf "Romagnosi and Volta’s pile: early difficulties in the interpretation of Voltaic electricity"], in Fabio Bevilacqua, Lucio Fregonese (eds), Nuova Voltiana: Studies on Volta and his Times, Volume 3, Pavia / Milano: Università degli Studi di Pavia / Ulrico Hoepli, 2001, pp. 81–102. In 1820 Hans Christian Ørsted performed a simple and today widely known experiment on electric current and magnetism. He demonstrated that a wire carrying a current could deflect a magnetized compass needle.Ørsted, Hans Christian (1997). Karen Jelved, Andrew D. Jackson, and Ole Knudsen, translators from Danish to English. Selected Scientific Works of Hans Christian Ørsted, {{ISBN|0-691-04334-5}}, pp. 421–45 Ørsted's work influenced André-Marie Ampère to produce a theory of electromagnetism. Several scientists speculated that light might be connected with electricity or magnetism.

In 1831, Michael Faraday began a series of experiments in which he discovered electromagnetic induction. The relation was mathematically modelled by Faraday's law, which subsequently became one of the four Maxwell equations. Faraday proposed that electromagnetic forces extended into the empty space around the conductor, but did not complete his work involving that proposal. In 1846 Michael Faraday speculated that light was a wave disturbance in a "force field".{{cite journal | author = Baggott, Jim | title = The myth of Michael Faraday: Michael Faraday was not just one of Britain's greatest experimenters. A closer look at the man and his work reveals that he was also a clever theoretician | journal = New Scientist | date = 21 September 1991 | url = https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg13117874-600-the-myth-of-michael-faraday-michael-faraday-was-not-just-one-of-britains-greatest-experimenters-a-closer-look-at-the-man-and-his-work-reveals-that-he-was-also-a-clever-theoretician/ |pages= 43–57|access-date = 2018-02-04 }}

Expanding upon a series of experiments by Felix Savary,Gluckman, Albert Gerard, [http://www.princeton.edu/ssp/joseph-henry-project/oscillatory-discharge/Henry_Gluckman_oscillatory.pdf "The Discovery of Oscillatory Electric Current"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150703201745/http://www.princeton.edu/ssp/joseph-henry-project/oscillatory-discharge/Henry_Gluckman_oscillatory.pdf |date=2015-07-03 }}, Journal of the Washington Academy of Sciences, March 1990, pp. 16–25.{{cite web|url=http://www.princeton.edu/ssp/joseph-henry-project/felix-savary-1827/|title=Felix Savary 1827|author=Princeton University|work=(princeton.edu)|access-date=2015-03-27|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150330032316/http://www.princeton.edu/ssp/joseph-henry-project/felix-savary-1827/|archive-date=2015-03-30|url-status=dead}}{{cite web|url=https://archive.org/stream/TheHistoryOfElectricalResonance/The%20history%20of%20electrical%20resonance#page/n0/mode/1up|title=The History Of Electrical Resonance|author=Blancard, Julian|work=Bell System Technical Journal|pages=415–33|date=October 1941}} between 1842 and 1850 Joseph Henry performed experiments detecting inductive magnetic effects over a distance of {{convert|200|ft|m}}.Fleming, J. A. (1908) [https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.$b33190&view=1up&seq=11 The Principles of Electric Wave Telegraphy], London: New York and Co. (cf., Joseph Henry, in the United States, between 1842 and 1850, explored many of the puzzling facts connected with this subject, and only obtained a clue to the anomalies when he realized that the discharge of a condenser through a low resistance circuit is oscillatory in nature. Amongst other things, Henry noticed the power of condenser discharges to induce secondary currents which could magnetize steel needles even when a great distance separated the primary and secondary circuits.)See [https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=coo1.ark:/13960/t6n01q317&view=1up&seq=221 The Scientific Writings of Joseph Henry], vol. i. pp. 203, 20:-i; also [https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=hvd.32044017886631&view=1up&seq=675 "Analysis of the Dynamic Phenomena of the Leyden Jar"], Proceedings of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, 1850, vol. iv. pp. 377–78, Joseph Henry. The effect of the oscillatory discharge on a magnetized needle is summarized in this review.Ames, J. S., Henry, J., & Faraday, M. (1900). [https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=hvd.32044027924562&view=1up&seq=9 The Discovery of Induced Electric Currents], New York: American book. (cf. Page 107: "On moving to Princeton, in 1832, [Henry] [...] investigated also the discharge of a Leyden jar, proved that it was oscillatory in character, and showed that its inductive effects could be detected at a distance of two hundred feet, thus clearly establishing the existence of electro-magnetic waves.") He was the first (1838–42) to produce high frequency AC electrical oscillations, and to point out and experimentally demonstrate that the discharge of a capacitor under certain conditions is oscillatory, or, as he puts it, consists "of a principal discharge in one direction and then several reflex actions backward and forward, each more feeble than the preceding until equilibrium is attained".{{citation needed|date=February 2015}} This view was also later adopted by Helmholtz,Helmholtz, Hermann (1847) [https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015064470381&view=1up&seq=3 "Über die Erhaltung der Kraft"], Berlin the mathematical demonstration of this fact was first given by Lord Kelvin in his paper on "Transient Electric Currents".Thomson, William (June 1853) [https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.b3728131&view=1up&seq=403 "On Transient Electric Currents"], Philosophical Magazine and Journal of Science, Fourth series, volume 5, pp. 393–405.Fessenden, Reginald (1908) [https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015068171985&view=1up&seq=585 "Wireless Telephony"], Transactions of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers (volume 27, part 1), June 29, 1908, pp. 553–630

=Maxwell and the theoretical prediction of electromagnetic waves=

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; Maxwell and electromagnetic waves

File:James Clerk Maxwell.png|James Clerk Maxwell

File:Oheaviside.jpg|Oliver Heaviside

Between 1861 and 1865, based on the earlier experimental work of Faraday and other scientists and on his own modification to Ampere's law, James Clerk Maxwell developed his theory of electromagnetism, which predicted the existence of electromagnetic waves. In 1864 Maxwell described the theoretical basis of the propagation of electromagnetic waves in his paper to the Royal Society, "A Dynamical Theory of the Electromagnetic Field." This theory united all previously unrelated observations, experiments and equations of electricity, magnetism, and optics into a consistent theory.{{cite web | title = Electromagnetism | url = http://ethw.org/Electromagnetism |access-date=2018-02-04 |publisher= Engineering and Technology History Wiki (ethw.org)|year= 2017}} His set of equations—Maxwell's equations—demonstrated that electricity, magnetism, and light are all manifestations of the same phenomenon, the electromagnetic field. Subsequently, all other classic laws or equations of these disciplines were special cases of Maxwell's equations. Maxwell's work in electromagnetism has been called the "second great unification in physics", after Newton's unification of gravity in the 17th century.Nahin, Paul J. (1992), [https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=123329 "Maxwell's Grand Unification"], IEEE Spectrum 29(3): 45.

Oliver Heaviside later reformulated Maxwell's original equations into the set of four vector equations that are generally known today as Maxwell's equations.Hunt, Bruce J. (1991) [https://books.google.com/books?id=23rBH11Q9w8C The Maxwellians] Neither Maxwell nor Heaviside transmitted or received radio waves; however, their equations for electromagnetic fields established principles for radio design, and remain the standard expression of classical electromagnetism.

Of Maxwell's work, Albert Einstein wrote:{{cite journal |author=Einstein, Albert |year=1940 |title=Considerations Concerning the Fundaments of Theoretical Physics |journal=Science |volume=91 |issue=2369 |pages=487–92 |doi=10.1126/science.91.2369.487|bibcode = 1940Sci....91..487E |pmid=17847438}}

"Imagine [Maxwell's] feelings when the differential equations he had formulated proved to him that electromagnetic fields spread in the form of polarised waves, and at the speed of light! To few men in the world has such an experience been vouchsafed... it took physicists some decades to grasp the full significance of Maxwell's discovery, so bold was the leap that his genius forced upon the conceptions of his fellow-workers."

Other physicists were equally impressed with Maxwell's work, such as Richard Feynman who commented:

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"From a long view of the history of the world—seen from, say, ten thousand years from now—there can be little doubt that the most significant event of the 19th century will be judged as Maxwell's discovery of the laws of electromagnetism. The American Civil War will pale into provincial insignificance in comparison with this important scientific event of the same decade."

=Experiments and proposals=

Berend Wilhelm Feddersen,"476) Feddersen, Bernhard Wilhelm, geb. 26. März 1832 in Schleswig, Sohn des vorhergenannten B. Feddersen, No. 475, studirte Naturwissenschaften und war eine Zeitlang Assistent im naturwissenschaftlichen Institut unter Prof. Karstens Leitung, wurde 1858 dr. philos. in Kiel; zur Zeit Privatdocent in Leipzig." ([https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=hvd.32044087107009&view=1up&seq=225 Lexicon der Schleswig-Holstein-Lauenburg und Eutinishcen Schriftsteller von 1829 bis Mitte 1866] by Edward Alberti (1867), entry #476, p. 207
Translation: "476 Feddersen, Bernhard Wilhelm, born 26 March 1832 in Schleswig, the son of the aforementioned B. Feddersen, no. 475, studied science and was for a time assistant in a scientific institute under Prof. Karsten's line was, in 1858 dr. philos in Kiel, at the time university lecturer in Leipzig." (Biographies of Schleswig-Holstein-Lauenburg and Eutinishcen Writers from 1829 to mid-1866 by Edward Alberti (1867))
a German physicist, in 1859, as a private scholar in Leipzig, succeeded in experiments with the Leyden jar to prove that electric sparks were composed of damped oscillations.

In 1870 the German physicist Wilhelm von Bezold discovered and demonstrated the fact that the advancing and reflected oscillations produced in conductors by a capacitor discharge gave rise to interference phenomena.Von Bezold, Wilhelm (1870) [https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.b4433678&view=1up&seq=561 "Untersuchgen über die elektrische Entladung. Voräufige Mittheilung."], Poggendorff's Annalen der Physik und Chemie, series 2, volume 140, number 8, pp. 541–52{{Cite journal |title=Scientific Serials |journal=Nature|url=https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015038818327&view=1up&seq=268 |volume=3 |pages=216–17 |date=12 January 1871 |doi=10.1038/003216a0 |bibcode = 1871Natur...3..216. |issue=63|doi-access=free }} Professors Elihu Thomson and E. J. Houston in 1876 made a number of experiments and observations on high frequency oscillatory discharges.Thomson, Elihu and Houston, Edwin (April 1876) [https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=hvd.32044102914314&view=1up&seq=392 "The Alleged Etheric Force. Test Experiments as to its Identity with Induced Electricity"], Journal of the Franklin Institute, pp. 270–74 In 1883 George FitzGerald suggestedFitzgerald, George (1883) [https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=njp.32101076796505&view=1up&seq=513 "On a method of producing Electromagnetic Disturbances of comparatively short wave-lengths"], Report of the fifty-third meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, p. 405. at a British Association meeting that electromagnetic waves could be generated by the discharge of a capacitor, but the suggestion was not followed up, possibly because no means was known for detecting the waves.

=Hertz experimentally verifies Maxwell's theory=

File:Heinrich Rudolf Hertz.jpg

When German physicist Heinrich Rudolf Hertz was looking for a subject for his doctoral dissertation in 1879, instructor Hermann von Helmholtz suggested he try to prove Maxwell's theory of electromagnetism. Hertz initially couldn't see any way to test the theory but his observation, in the autumn of 1886, of discharging a Leyden jar into a large coil and producing a spark in an adjacent coil gave him the idea of how to build a test apparatus.[http://www.nndb.com/people/419/000072203/ Heinrich Hertz]. nndb.com. Retrieved on 22 August 2014.Baird, Davis, Hughes, R.I.G. and Nordmann, Alfred eds. (1998). Heinrich Hertz: Classical Physicist, Modern Philosopher. New York: Springer-Verlag. {{ISBN|079234653X}}. p. 53Huurdeman, Anton A. (2003) The Worldwide History of Telecommunications. Wiley. {{ISBN|0471205052}}. p. 202 Using a Ruhmkorff coil to create sparks across a gap (a spark gap transmitter) and observing the sparks created between the gap in a nearby metal loop antenna, between 1886 and 1888 Hertz would conduct a series of scientific experiments that would validate Maxwell's theory.Massie, W. W., & Underhill, C. R. (1911) [https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=wu.89061426870&view=1up&seq=7 Wireless Telegraphy and Telephony Popularly Explained]. New York: D. Van Nostrand. Hertz published his results in a series of papers between 1887 and 1890,{{cite web|url=http://www.sparkmuseum.com/BOOK_HERTZ.HTM |title=Heinrich Rudolf Hertz (1857–1894)|publisher=(sparkmuseum.com) |access-date=2012-04-15}} and again in complete book form in 1893.Hertz, Heinrich (1893) [https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=wu.89038228490&view=1up&seq=9 Electric waves: Being researches on the propagation of electric action with finite velocity through space], translated by D. E. Jones.

The first of the papers published, "On Very Rapid Electric Oscillations", gives an account of the chronological course of his investigation, as far as it was carried out up to the end of the year 1886 and the beginning of 1887.Hertz (1893) [https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=wu.89038228490&view=1up&seq=25 pp. 1–5]

For the first time, electromagnetic radio waves ("Hertzian waves")[https://archive.org/stream/amateurwork01bostrich#page/4/mode/1up "Hertizian Waves"], Amateur Work, November 1901, pp. 4–6 were intentionally and unequivocally proven to have been transmitted through free space by a spark-gap device, and detected over a short distance.{{cite web|url=http://www.tfcbooks.com/mainpage/glossary.htm#hertz_wave |title=Hertz wave (definition) |publisher=Tfcbooks.com |access-date=2010-01-31 }}

File:Hertz schematic0.PNG

Hertz was able to have some control over the frequencies of his radiated waves by altering the inductance and capacitance of his transmitting and receiving antennas. He focused the electromagnetic waves using a corner reflector and a parabolic reflector, to demonstrate that radio behaved the same as light, as Maxwell's electromagnetic theory had predicted more than 20 years earlier.

Hertz did not devise a system for practical utilization of electromagnetic waves, nor did he describe any potential applications of the technology. Hertz was asked by his students at the University of Bonn what use there might be for these waves. He replied, "It's of no use whatsoever. This is just an experiment that proves Maestro Maxwell was right, we just have these mysterious electromagnetic waves that we cannot see with the naked eye. But they are there."{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WB_hOjRMCwQC&q=hertz+%22it%27s+of+no+use+whatsoever%22&pg=PA107|title=Quips, Quotes, and Quanta: An Anecdotal History of Physics|author=Anton Z. Capri|date=2011|publisher=World Scientific |isbn=9789814343473}}

Many physicists quickly realized that Hertzian waves could be used (instead of light) in systems akin to optical telegraph: for example, Richard Threlfall and John Perry suggested that in 1890, Alexander Pelham Trotter in 1891 and Frederick Thomas Trouton in 1892, however they all thought about it in terms of short flashes as opposed to telegraphic dots and dashes.{{Cite book |last=Hong |first=Sungook |url= |title=Wireless: From Marconi's Black-Box to the Audion |publisher=The MIT Press |year=2001 |isbn=978-0-262-27563-7 |pages=5–9 |language=en}} In what may have been a little noticed article titled 'Some possibilities of electricity' in the February 1892 in The Fortnightly Review, Sir William Crookes described wireless telegraphy as having been accomplished a year earlier, although the method and type is not described.Sungook Hong, Wireless: From Marconi's Black-box to the Audion, MIT Press, 2001, pp. 11–12 The American physicist Amos Emerson Dolbear brought similar attention to the idea a year later.Dolbear, A. E. (March 1893), [https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=umn.319510007287076&view=1up&seq=297 "The Future of Electricity"], Donahoe's Magazine, pp. 289–95. Hertz's health deteriorated after a severe infection in 1892 and he died in 1894, so the art of radio wave communication was left to others to implement into a practical form.

Pre-Hertz radio wave detection

During 1789–91, Luigi Galvani noticed that a spark generated nearby caused a convulsion in a frog's leg being touched by a scalpel."Wireless before Marconi" by L. V. Lindell (2006), included in History of Wireless by T. K. Sarkar, Robert Mailloux, Arthur A. Oliner, M. Salazar-Palma, Dipak L. Sengupta, John Wiley & Sons, pp. 258–61{{cite web|last=Bergia|first=Silvio|url=http://www.scienzagiovane.unibo.it/English/scientists/oiginali-galvani/Galvani.doc|title=Luigi Galvani|format=DOC|date=November 26, 2004|access-date=December 22, 2023}} In different experiments, he noticed contractions in frogs' legs caused by lightning and a luminous discharge from a charged Leyden jar that disappeared over time and was renewed whenever a spark occurred nearby.{{cite web|url=http://www.scienzagiovane.unibo.it/English/scientists/galvani-3.html|title=Luigi Galvani|publisher=Bologna University web site for Science Communication (scienzagiovane.unibo.it)|access-date=11 December 2015}}{{cite journal|jstor=227753|title=Observations of Electromagnetic-Wave Radiation before Hertz|journal=Isis|volume=55|issue=1|author=Charles Susskind|publisher=Isis: A Journal of the History of Science Society (March 1964)|pages=32–42|year=1964|doi=10.1086/349793| s2cid=224845756 }}

Joseph Henry observed magnetised needles from lightning in the early 1840s.

In 1852 Samuel Alfred Varley noticed a remarkable fall in the resistance of masses of metallic filings under the action of atmospheric electrical discharges.

File:David Edward Hughes.jpg

Towards the end of 1875, while experimenting with the telegraph, Thomas Edison noted a phenomenon that he termed "etheric force", announcing it to the press on 28 November. He abandoned this research when Elihu Thomson, among others, ridiculed the idea, claiming it was electromagnetic induction.

In 1879 the experimenter and inventor David Edward Hughes, working in London, discovered that a bad contact in a Bell telephone he was using in his experiments seemed to be sparking when he worked on a nearby induction balance (an early form of metal detector).Walters, Rob (2005) Spread Spectrum: Hedy Lamarr and the Mobile Phone, Satin, page 16The Electrician, Volume 43: [https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=njp.32101050971173&view=1up&seq=57 "Notes"] (May 5, 1899, p. 35); [https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=njp.32101050971173&view=1up&seq=62 "Prof. D. E. Hughes's Researches in Wireless Telegraphy"] by J. J. Fahie (May 5, 1899, pp. 40–41); [https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=njp.32101050971173&view=1up&seq=115 "The National Telephone Company's Staff Dinner"] (Hughes remarks), (May 12, 1899, pp. 93–94) He developed an improved detector to pick up this unknown "extra current" based on his new microphone design (similar to later detectors known as coherers or crystal detectors)Drummer, G. W. A. (1997) Electronic Inventions and Discoveries: Electronics from its earliest beginnings to the present day, Fourth Edition, CRC Press, p. 95 and developed a way to interrupt his induction balance to produce a series of sparks. By trial and error experiments he eventually found he could pick up these "aerial waves" as he carried his telephone device down the street out to a range of {{convert|500|yd|m}}.

On 20 February 1880, he demonstrated his experiment to representatives of the Royal Society including Thomas Henry Huxley, Sir George Gabriel Stokes, and William Spottiswoode, then president of the Society. Stokes was convinced the phenomenon Hughes was demonstrating was merely electromagnetic induction, not a type of conduction through the air.{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vd90yIE2Ya8C&q=David+Hughes+electromagnetic+waves&pg=PA35|title=The Early History of Radio|author=Garratt, G. R. M.|date=1994|isbn=9780852968451}}{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=T8YLfMsaAXAC&q=David+Hughes+hertz&pg=PT69|title=Media, Technology and Society|author=Winston, Brian|date=1998|publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1134766321}}Story, A. T. (1904) [https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=hvd.hn5bxg&view=1up&seq=112 The Story of Wireless Telegraphy], pp. 108–17 Hughes was not a physicist and seems to have accepted Stokes observations and did not pursue the experiments any further. His work may have been the wireless experiment William Crookes recalled in his 1892 Fortnightly Review review of 'Some possibilities of electricity'.Sungook Hong, Wireless: From Marconi's Black-box to the Audion, MIT Press, 2001, pp. 11–12Crookes, William (February 1, 1892) [https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=njp.32101020442362&view=1up&seq=183 "Some Possibilities of Electricity"], The Fortnightly Review, pp. 173–81

Development of radio waves

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Early experimenters

File:Édouard Branly 1.jpg|Édouard Branly

File:Oliver Joseph Lodge.jpg|Oliver Joseph Lodge

File:J.C.Bose.JPG|Jagadish Chandra Bose

=The Branly detector=

In 1890, Édouard Branly"Variations of Conductivity under Electrical Influences" by Edouard Branly. Minutes of proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers (volume 103) by Institution of Civil Engineers (Great Britain). [https://books.google.com/books?id=03sMAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA481 p. 481] (Contained in Comptes rendus de I'Acade'mie des Sciences, Paris, vol. cii., 1890, p. 78.)"On the Changes in Resistance of Bodies under Different Electrical Conditions" by E. Branly. Minutes of proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers (volume 104) by Institution of Civil Engineers (Great Britain). 1891. [https://books.google.com/books?id=_jDyAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA416 p. 416] (Contained in Comptes Rendus de l'Académie des Sciences, Paris, 1891, vol. exit., p. 90.)[https://books.google.com/books?id=IlIwAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA530 "Experiments on the Conductivity of Insulating Bodies"] by M. Edouard Branly, M.D., Philosophical Magazine, Taylor & Francis., 1892, p. 530 (Contained in Comples Rendus de l' Academic des Sciences, 24 November 1890 and 12 January 1891, also, Bulletin de la Societi internationals d'electriciens, no. 78, May 1891) demonstrated a new type of detector."Increase of Resistance of Radio-conductors" by E. Branly. (Comptes Rendus 130, pp. 1068–71, April 17, 1900.) Branly discovered that loose metal filings, which in a normal state have a high electrical resistance, lost their resistance in the presence of electric oscillations generated by a spark, and became practically conductors of electricity. This Branly showed by placing metal filings in a glass box or tube, and making them part of an ordinary electric circuit. Branly further found that when the filings had once adhered tegether they retained their low resistance until shaken apart, for instance, by tapping on the tube.United States Naval Institute (1902). Proceedings (volume 28, part 2) [https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=coo.31924066495817&view=1up&seq=453 p.443] Branly's filing tube came to light when it was described by Dr. Dawson Turner at a meeting of the British Association in Edinburgh{{Cite book |last=Hong |first=Sungook |url=https://direct.mit.edu/books/book/2576/WirelessFrom-Marconi-s-Black-Box-to-the-Audion |title=Wireless: From Marconi's Black-Box to the Audion |date=2001-09-28 |publisher=The MIT Press |isbn=978-0-262-27563-7 |language=en |doi=10.7551/mitpress/7255.001.0001}}{{cite journal|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=n3c3AQAAMAAJ&pg=PA268|title=The Development of the Coherer|journal=Scientific American|author=E. C. Green|date=October 27, 1917|volume=84|issue=2182supp|pages=268–269|publisher=Munn and Company|doi=10.1038/scientificamerican10271917-268supp}} and Scottish electrical engineer and astronomer George Forbes suggests the filings tube may be reacting in the presence of Hertzian waves. This device would be picked up by Oliver Lodge in his experiments.{{cite book | title = Modern Engineering Practice | volume = VII | chapter = Wireless Telegraphy | page = 10 | year = 1903 | publisher = American School of Correspondence | chapter-url = https://books.google.com/books?id=iFEwAAAAMAAJ&pg=RA1-PA58 }}

=Lodge's demonstrations=

British physicist and writer Sir Oliver Lodge came close to being the first to prove the existence of Maxwell's electromagnetic waves. In a series of spring 1888 experiments conducted with a Leyden jar connected to a length of wire with spaced spark gaps he noticed he was getting different size sparks and a glow pattern along the wire that seemed to be a function of wavelength.James P. Rybak, [http://www.antiquewireless.org/uploads/1/6/1/2/16129770/48-oliver_lodge.pdf Oliver Lodge: Almost the Father of Radio] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181003074015/http://www.antiquewireless.org/uploads/1/6/1/2/16129770/48-oliver_lodge.pdf |date=2018-10-03 }}, page 4, from Antique Wireless[https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uva.x002000808&view=1up&seq=14 "Experiments on the Discharge of Leyden Jars"], by Oliver J. Lodge, F.R.S. (received May 2, 1891, read June 4, 1891), Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, (volume 50, June 4, 1891–February 25, 1892), pp. 2–39 Before he could present his own findings he learned of Hertz' series of proofs on the same subject.{{fact|date=July 2022}}

On 1 June 1894, at a meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science at Oxford University, Lodge gave a memorial lecture on the work of Hertz (recently deceased) and the German physicist's proof of the existence of electromagnetic waves 6 years earlier. Lodge set up a demonstration on the quasi-optical nature of "Hertzian waves" (radio waves) and demonstrated their similarity to light and vision including reflection and transmission.Sungook Hong, Wireless: From Marconi's Black-box to the Audion, MIT Press, 2001, pp. 30–32 Later in June and on 14 August 1894 he did similar experiments, increasing the distance of transmission up to 55 meters. In these lectures Lodge demonstrated a detector that would become standard in radio work, an improved version of Branly's detector which Lodge dubbed the coherer. It consisted of a glass tube containing metal filings between two electrodes. When the small electrical charge from waves from an antenna were applied to the electrodes, the metal particles would cling together or "cohere" causing the device to become conductive allowing the current from a battery to pass through it. In Lodge's setup the slight impulses from the coherer were picked up by a mirror galvanometer which would deflect a beam of light being projected on it, giving a visual signal that the impulse was received. After receiving a signal the metal filings in the coherer were broken apart or "decohered" by a manually operated vibrator or by the vibrations of a bell placed on the table near by that rang every time a transmission was received. Lodge also demonstrated tuning using a pair of Leyden jars that could be brought into resonance.W.A. Atherton, From Compass to Computer: History of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, Macmillan International Higher Education, 1984, p. 185 Lodge's lectures were widely publicized and his techniques influenced and were expanded on by other radio pioneers including Augusto Righi and his student Guglielmo Marconi, Alexander Popov, Lee de Forest, and Jagadish Chandra Bose.Peter Rowlands, Oliver Lodge and the Liverpool Physical Society, Liverpool University Press, 1990, p. 119The Encyclopedia Americana, Grolier Incorporated, 2000, p. 162

Lodge at the time seemed to see no value in using radio waves for signalling or wireless telegraphy and there is debate as to whether he even bothered to demonstrate communication during his lectures. Physicist John Ambrose Fleming pointed out that Lodge's lecture was a physics experiment, not a demonstration of telegraphic signaling.Sungook Hong, Wireless: From Marconi's Black-box to the Audion, MIT Press, 2001, page 48 After radio communication was developed Lodge's lecture would become the focus of priority disputes over who invented wireless telegraphy (radio). His early demonstration and later development of radio tuning (his 1898 Syntonic tuning patent) would lead to patent disputes with the Marconi Company. When Lodge's syntonic patent was extended in 1911 for another seven years Marconi agreed to settle the patent dispute and purchase the patent.Sungook Hong, Wireless: From Marconi's Black-box to the Audion, p. 49

=Bose's microwave research=

Inspired by Lodge's demonstrations the Indian physicist, Jagadish Chandra Bose, in 1894 - 1900 conducted the first research into the properties of millimetre length radio waves, in the microwave range of about 5 mm wavelength.Mukherji Visvapriya, Jagadish [https://archive.org/details/jagadischandrabo00mukh Chandra Bose, second edition]. Builders of Modern India series, Publications Division, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India - 1994., pp. 14–25 Working from a small laboratory he set up in November of 1894 at the Presidency College of the University of Calcutta, he researched the properties of materials at microwave frequencies, inventing a microwave spectrometer consisting of a spark transmitter, coherer receiver, as well as the first waveguide, horn antenna and semiconductor crystal detector{{cite journal

| last = Bose

| first = J. C.

| title = On a new electro-polariscope

| journal = The Electrician

| volume = 36

| issue = 9

| pages = 291

| publisher = The Electrician Printing and Publishing Co.

| location = London

| date = December 27, 1895

| language =

| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=E8oYhOH2CRUC&q=electro-polariscope

| jstor =

| issn =

| doi =

| id =

| mr =

| zbl =

| jfm =

| access-date = 11 May 2025}}{{cite journal

| last = Bose

| first = J. C.

| title = On the polarization of electric rays by double-refracting crystals

| journal = The Electrician

| volume = 36

| issue = 9

| pages = 289–290

| publisher = The Electrician Printing and Publishing Co.

| location = London

| date = December 27, 1895

| language =

| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=E8oYhOH2CRUC&q=electro-polariscope

| jstor =

| issn =

| doi =

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| access-date = 11 May 2025}}https://vigyanprasar.gov.in/bose-jagdish-chandra/ Bose Jagdish Chandra, igyanprasar.gov.in

In November 1895 at a public demonstration at the Town Hall of Kolkata, Bose showed how these new waves could travel through the human body (of Lieutenant Governor Sir William Mackenzie), and over a distance of 23 metres (75') through two intervening walls to a trigger apparatus he had set up to ring a bell and ignite gunpowder in a closed room. Sarkar, Tapan; Sengupta, Dipak L. "An appreciation of J. C. Bose's pioneering work in millimeter and microwaves" in {{cite book

| last1 = Sarkar

| first1 = T. K.

| last2 = Mailloux

| first2 = Robert

| last3 = Oliner

| first3 = Arthur A.

| title = History of Wireless

| publisher = John Wiley and Sons

| date = 2006

| pages =

| url = https://archive.org/stream/HistoryOfWireless#page/n323/mode/2up

| isbn = 978-0471783015

| author-link1=

| author-link3=

}}{{cite book

| last = Emerson

| first = Darrel T.

| chapter = The work of Jagadis Chandra Bose: 100 years of mm-wave research

| title = 1997 IEEE MTT-S International Microwave Symposium Digest

| journal = IEEE Transactions on Microwave Theory and Techniques

| volume = 45

| issue = 12

| pages = 2267–2273

| publisher = Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers

| location =

| date = December 1997

| language =

| chapter-url = https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/602853

| jstor =

| issn = 0149-645X

| doi = 10.1109/MWSYM.1997.602853

| bibcode = 1997imsd.conf..553E

| isbn = 0-7803-3814-6

| id =

| mr =

| zbl =

| jfm =

| access-date = 11 May 2025}} archived [https://www.cv.nrao.edu/~demerson/bose/bose.html Emerson, National Radio Astronomy Observatory website]Savneet kaur, Great Scientists of the World : Jagdish Chandra Bose, Diamond Pocket Books Pvt Ltd - 2022, page 45S. Ramaseshan, The centennial of the discovery of millimetre waves by Jagadis Chandra Bose (1858–1937), Current Science, Vol. 70, No. 2 (25 January 1996), pp. 172-175Subal Kar, Physics and Astrophysics - Glimpses of the Progress, CRC Press · 2022, 1.5.4 - Fallout of Maxwell and Faraday's Electromagnetism However he was not interested in researching the use of radio waves for communication.

Adaptations of radio waves

=Popov's lightning detector=

File:Alexander Stepanovich Popov.jpg

In 1894–95 the Russian physicist Alexander Stepanovich Popov conducted experiments developing a radio receiver, an improved version of coherer-based design by Oliver Lodge. His design with coherer auto-tapping mechanism was designed as a lightning detector to help the forest service track lightning strikes that could start fires. His receiver proved to be able to sense lightning strikes at distances of up to 30 km. Popov built a version of the receiver that was capable of automatically recording lightning strikes on paper rolls. Popov presented his radio receiver to the Russian Physical and Chemical Society on 7 May 1895 — the day has been celebrated in the Russian Federation as "Radio Day" promoted in eastern European countries as the inventor of radio.[http://ethw.org/Milestones:Popov's_Contribution_to_the_Development_of_Wireless_Communication,_1895 "Popov's Contribution to the Development of Wireless Communication, 1895"], Engineering and Technology History Wiki (ethw.org)[http://fecha.org/popov.htm "Russia's Popov: Did he 'invent' radio?]", The First Electronic Church of America (fecha.org){{cite web|title = Early Radio Transmission Recognized as Milestone|work=IEEE Broadcast Technology Society Newsletter|date=Summer 2005|author=Vonderheid, Erica|pages=3–4|url=https://bts.ieee.org/images/files/newsletters/summernl.pdf|access-date=February 6, 2018}} The paper on his findings was published the same year (15 December 1895). Popov had recorded, at the end of 1895, that he was hoping for distant signaling with radio waves.Emerson, D. T. (February 1998) [http://www.tuc.nrao.edu/~demerson/bose/bose.html "The work of Jagadis Chandra Bose: 100 years of mm-wave research]", National Radio Astronomy Observatory (nrao.edu) He did not apply for a patent for this invention.{{fact|date=July 2022}}

=Tesla's boat=

In 1898 Nikola Tesla developed a radio/coherer based remote-controlled boat, with a form of secure communicationTesla, N., & Anderson, L. I. (1998). Nikola Tesla: Guided Weapons & Computer Technology. Tesla presents series, pt. 3. Breckenridge, Colo: Twenty-First Century Books.Tesla, N., & Anderson, L. I. (2002). [http://www.tfcbooks.com/mall/more/314ntac.htm Nikola Tesla on his work with alternating currents and their application to wireless telegraphy, telephony, and transmission of power: an extended interview]. Tesla presents series, pt. 1. Breckenridge, Colo: Twenty-First Century Books. between transmitter and receiver,The schematics are illustrated in {{US patent|613809}} "Method of and apparatus for controlling mechanism of moving vessels or vehicles" and describes "rotating coherers". which he demonstrated in 1898. Tesla called his invention a "teleautomaton" and he hoped to sell it as a guided naval torpedo.Jonnes, Jill. Empires of Light {{ISBN|0375758844}}. p. 355, referencing O'Neill, John J., Prodigal Genius: The Life of Nikola Tesla (New York: David McKay, 1944), p. 167.

Radio based wireless telegraphy

=Marconi=

File:Guglielmo Marconi.jpg

Guglielmo Marconi studied at the Leghorn Technical School, and acquainted himself with the published writings of Professor Augusto Righi of the University of Bologna.Miessner, B. F. (1916) [https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.$b276725&view=1up&seq=43 Radiodynamics: The Wireless Control of Torpedoes and Other Mechanisms], New York: D. Van Nostrand Co., pp. 31–32 In 1894, Sir William Preece delivered a paper to the Royal Institution in London on electric signalling without wires.[https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.b2875627&view=1up&seq=280 "Electric Signalling Without Wires"] by W. H. Preece, Journal of the Society of Arts (volume 42), February 23, 1894, pp. 274–278Haydn, Joseph & Vincent, Benjamin (1904) [https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=hvd.hn4w6b&view=1up&seq=431 "Wireless Telegraphy"], Haydn's Dictionary of Dates and Universal Information Relating to All Ages and Nations, G. P. Putnam's sons, pp. 413–14. In 1894 at the Royal Institution lectures, Lodge delivered "The Work of Hertz and Some of His Successors".[https://books.google.com/books?id=ZrloHemOmUEC&pg=PA321 "The Work of Hertz" by Oliver Lodge], Proceedings (volume 14: 1893–95), Royal Institution of Great Britain, pp. 321–49 Marconi is said to have read, while on vacation in 1894, about the experiments that Hertz did in the 1880s. Marconi also read about Tesla's work.Marconi, Guglielmo (October 1913) [https://books.google.com/books?id=PkTOAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA75 "Wireless as a Commercial Fact: From the Inventor's Testimony in the United States Court in Brooklyn (Part III)" ], The Wireless Age, N.Y. [New York] City: Macroni Pub. Corp'n (Wireless Press), p. 75. (cf. "I read parts of a book by [Thomas Commerford] Martin, entitled Inventions, Researches and Writings of Nikola Tesla, published in 1894".) It was at this time that Marconi began to understand that radio waves could be used for wireless communications. Marconi's early apparatus was a development of Hertz's laboratory apparatus into a system designed for communications purposes. At first Marconi used a transmitter to ring a bell in a receiver in his attic laboratory. He then moved his experiments out-of-doors on the family estate near Bologna, Italy, to communicate further. He replaced Hertz's vertical dipole with a vertical wire topped by a metal sheet, with an opposing terminal connected to the ground. On the receiver side, Marconi replaced the spark gap with a metal powder coherer, a detector developed by Edouard Branly and other experimenters. Marconi transmitted radio signals for about {{convert|1.5|mi|km}} at the end of 1895.Bradford, Henry M., [http://www.newscotland1398.net/marconi100/marconi1.html "Marconi's Three Transatlantic Radio Stations In Cape Breton"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190215085418/http://www.newscotland1398.net/marconi100/marconi1.html |date=15 February 2019 }}. Read before the Royal Nova Scotia Historical Society, January 31, 1996. (Reproduced from the Royal Nova Scotia Historical Society Journal, Volume 1, 1998.)

Marconi was awarded a patent for radio with British patent [https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc2.ark:/13960/t0dv1dp4c&view=1up&seq=322 No. 12,039], Improvements in Transmitting Electrical Impulses and Signals and in Apparatus There-for. The complete specification was filed 2 March 1897. This was Marconi's initial patent for the radio, though it used various earlier techniques of various other experimenters and resembled the instrument demonstrated by others (including Popov). During this time spark-gap wireless telegraphy was widely researched. In July, 1896, Marconi got his invention and new method of telegraphy to the attention of Preece, then engineer-in-chief to the British Government Telegraph Service, who had for the previous twelve years interested himself in the development of wireless telegraphy by the inductive-conductive method. On 4 June 1897, he delivered "Signalling through Space without Wires".Preece, W. H. (1897) [https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.$b522695&view=1up&seq=535 "Signalling through Space without Wires]", delivered June 4, 1897, Proceedings of the Royal Institution of Great Britain, vol. XV, pp. 467–76. Preece devoted considerable time to exhibiting and explaining the Marconi apparatus at the Royal Institution in London, stating that Marconi invented a new relay which had high sensitiveness and delicacy.Fleming (1908) [https://books.google.com/books?id=HuAOAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA429 p. 429]

File:Coherer Rcvr.jpg

File:Muirhead Morse inker (Rankin Kennedy, Electrical Installations, Vol V, 1903).jpg

The Marconi Company Ltd. was founded by Marconi in 1897, known as the Wireless Telegraph Trading Signal Company. Also in 1897, Marconi established the radio station at Niton, Isle of Wight, England. Marconi's wireless telegraphy was inspected by the Post Office Telegraph authorities; they made a series of experiments with Marconi's system of telegraphy without connecting wires, in the Bristol Channel. The October wireless signals of 1897 were sent from Salisbury Plain to Bath, a distance of {{convert|34|mi|km}}.Gibson, Charles Robert (1914) Wireless Telegraphy and Telephony Without Wires, [https://books.google.com/books?id=fBswAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA79 p. 79] Around 1900 Marconi developed an empirical law that, for simple vertical sending and receiving antennas of equal height, the maximum working telegraphic distance varied as the square of the height of the antenna.Fleming (1906). This became known as Marconi's law.

Other experimental stations were established at Lavernock Point, near Penarth; on the Flat Holmes, an island in mid-channel, and at Brean Down, a promontory on the Somerset side. Signals were obtained between the first and last-named points, a distance of approximately {{convert|8|mi|km}}. The receiving instrument used was a Morse inkwriterErskine-Murray, James (1907) A Handbook of Wireless Telegraphy: Its Theory and Practice, for the use of Electrical Engineers, Students, and Operators, Crosby Lockwood and Son, [https://archive.org/details/ahandbookwirele02erskgoog/page/n59 p. 39] of the Post Office pattern.{{cite journal|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YoVNAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA715 |title=Marconi Telegraphy|journal=The Electrical Review|publisher= IPC Electrical-Electronic Press (volume 40)|date=May 21, 1897 |page=715|access-date=2012-04-15}}{{cite journal|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PXpNAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA822 |title=English Notes: Marconi Telegraphy|journal=The Electrical World|page=822 |publisher= (volume 29)|date= June 19, 1897|access-date=2012-04-15}} In 1898, Marconi opened a radio factory in Hall Street, Chelmsford, England, employing around 50 people. In 1899, Marconi announced his invention of the "iron-mercury-iron coherer with telephone detector" in a paper presented at Royal Society, London.{{fact|date=July 2022}}

In May 1898, communication was established for the Corporation of Lloyds between Ballycastle and the Lighthouse on Rathlin Island in the north of Ireland. In July 1898, the Marconi telegraphy was employed to report the results of yacht races at the Kingstown Regatta for the Dublin Express newspaper. A set of instruments were fitted up in a room at Kingstown, and another on board a steamer, the Flying Huntress. The aerial conductor on shore was a strip of wire netting attached to a mast {{convert|40|ft|m}} high, and several hundred messages were sent and correctly received during the progress of the races.{{fact|date=July 2022}}

At this time the Prince of Wales, later King Edward VII, had the misfortune to injure his knee, and was confined on board the royal yacht Osborne, based in Cowes Bay. Marconi fitted up his apparatus on board the royal yacht by request, and also at Ladywood Cottage, in the grounds of Osborne House, Isle of Wight, where his Mother Queen Victoria was staying. More than 150 messages were sent during the 16 days of the Prince's convalescence.{{cite book | first1 = R. F. |last1=Pocock | first2= Gerald Reginald Mansel |last2=Garratt | date = 1972 | title = The Origins of Maritime Radio: The Story of the Introduction of wireless telegraphy in the Royal Navy Between 1896 and 1900 | publisher = H.M. Stationery Office | page = 14| isbn = 978-0-11-290113-6 | url = https://archive.org/details/origins-maritime-radio}} The distances covered were small; but as the yacht moved about, on some occasions high hills were interposed so that the aerial wires were overtopped by hundreds of feet, yet this was no obstacle to communication. These demonstrations led the Corporation of Trinity House to afford an opportunity for testing the system in practice between the South Foreland Lighthouse, near Dover, and the East Goodwin Lightship, on the Goodwin Sands. This installation was set in operation on December 24, 1898, and proved to be of value. It was shown that when once the apparatus was set up it could be worked by ordinary seamen with very little training.{{fact|date=July 2022}}

At the end of 1898 electric wave telegraphy established by Marconi had demonstrated its utility, especially for communication between ship and ship and ship and shore.A summary of his work on wireless telegraphy up to the beginning of 1899 is given in a paper read by Marconi to the Institution of Electrical Engineers on March 2, 1899. ([https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=njp.32101048869679&view=1up&seq=287 "Wireless Telegraphy"] by G. Marconi, Journal of the Institution of Electrical Engineers, 1899 (volume 28), pp. 273–91)

The Haven Hotel station and Wireless Telegraph Mast was where much of Marconi's research work on wireless telegraphy was carried out after 1898.Fleming (1908) [https://books.google.com/books?id=HuAOAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA431 pp. 431–32] In 1899, he transmitted messages across the English Channel. Also in 1899, Marconi delivered "Wireless Telegraphy" to the Institution of Electrical Engineers. In addition, in 1899, W. H. Preece delivered "Aetheric Telegraphy", stating that the experimental stage in wireless telegraphy had been passed in 1894 and inventors were then entering the commercial stage.[https://books.google.com/books?id=EVVDAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA519 "Aetheric Telegraphy"] by W. H. Preece, Journal of the Society of Arts (volume 47), Society of Arts (Great Britain), May 5, 1899, pp. 519–23 Preece, continuing in the lecture, details the work of Marconi and other British inventors. In April 1899, Marconi's experiments were repeated for the first time in the United States, by Jerome Green at the University of Notre Dame.{{cite web |title=Wireless Transmission at Notre Dame – Notre Dame Archives News & Notes |url=http://www.archives.nd.edu/about/news/index.php/2010/wireless-transmission-at-notre-dame/ |website=Notre Dame Archives News & Notes |date=20 August 2010}}{{cite news |title=The Apparatus for Wireless Telegraphy|url=https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=chi.101809173&view=1up&seq=842 |work=American Electrician|date=July 1899|pages=344–346|author=Jerome J. Green}} In October, 1899, the progress of the yachts in the international race between the Columbia and Shamrock was successfully reported by aerial telegraphy, as many as 4,000 words having been (as is said) despatched from the two ship stations to the shore stations. Immediately afterward the apparatus was placed by request at the service of the United States Navy Board, and some highly interesting experiments followed under Marconi's personal supervision.Story (1904) [https://books.google.com/books?id=qFMbsXGH8pYC&pg=PA161 p. 161] The Marconi Company was renamed Marconi's Wireless Telegraph Company in 1900.{{fact|date=July 2022}}

File:Marconi at newfoundland.jpg, December 1901Sewall, Charles (1904 ) Wireless Telegraphy: Its Origins, Development, Inventions, and Apparatus, [https://archive.org/details/wirelesstelegra00sewagoog/page/n166 p. 144]]]

In 1901, Marconi claimed to have received daytime transatlantic radio frequency signals at a wavelength of 366 metres (820 kHz).Bradford, Henry M., [http://www.newscotland1398.net/nfld1901/marconi-nfld.html "Marconi in Newfoundland: The 1901 Transatlantic Radio Experiment"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181025183143/http://www.newscotland1398.net/nfld1901/marconi-nfld.html |date=25 October 2018 }}Bradford, Henry M., [http://www.antiquewireless.org/uploads/1/6/1/2/16129770/45-did_marconi_receive_transatlantic_radio_signals_in_1901.pdf "Did Marconi Receive Transatlantic Radio Signals in 1901? – Part 1"], Antique Wireless Association (antiquewireless.org)Bradford, Henry M., [http://www.antiquewireless.org/uploads/1/6/1/2/16129770/46-did_marconi_receive_transatlantic_radio_signals_in_1901.pdf "Did Marconi Receive Transatlantic Radio Signals in 1901? Part 2 (conclusion): The Trans-Atlantic Experiments], Antique Wireless Association (antiquewireless.org) Marconi established a wireless transmitting station at Marconi House, Rosslare Strand, Co. Wexford in 1901 to act as a link between Poldhu in Cornwall and Clifden in Co. Galway. His announcement on 12 December 1901, using a {{convert|152.4|m|ft|adj=on}} kite-supported antenna for reception, stated that the message was received at Signal Hill in St John's, Newfoundland (now part of Canada) via signals transmitted by the company's new high-power station at Poldhu, Cornwall. The message received had been prearranged and was known to Marconi, consisting of the Morse letter 'S' – three dots. Bradford has recently contested the reported success, however, based on theoretical work as well as a reenactment of the experiment. It is now well known that long-distance transmission at a wavelength of 366 meters is not possible during the daytime, because the skywave is heavily absorbed by the ionosphere.{{Citation needed|date=September 2012}} It is possible that what was heard was only random atmospheric noise, which was mistaken for a signal, or that Marconi may have heard a shortwave harmonic of the signal. The distance between the two points was about {{convert|3500|km|mi}}.{{fact|date=July 2022}}

The Poldhu to Newfoundland transmission claim has been criticized.Belrose, John S., [http://www.ieee.ca/millennium/radio/radio_differences.html "Fessenden and Marconi; Their Differing Technologies and Transatlantic Experiments During the First Decade of this Century"], International Conference on 100 Years of Radio, September 5–7, 1995. Retrieved 2018-02-05. There are various science historians, such as Belrose and Bradford, who have cast doubt that the Atlantic was bridged in 1901, but other science historians have taken the position that this was the first transatlantic radio transmission. Critics have claimed that it is more likely that Marconi received stray atmospheric noise from atmospheric electricity in this experiment.Hong, Sungook, "Marconi's Error: The First Transatlantic Wireless Telegraphy in 1901", Social Research, Spring 2005 (volume 72, number 1), pp. 107–24 The transmitting station in Poldhu, Cornwall used a spark-gap transmitter that could produce a signal in the medium frequency range and with high power levels.{{fact|date=July 2022}}

Marconi transmitted from England to Canada and the United States. In this period, a particular electromagnetic receiver, called the Marconi magnetic detector[https://books.google.com/books?id=_AMWAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA341 "Note on a Magnetic Detector of Electric Waves, which can be employed as a receiver for Space Telegraphy"] by G. Marconi (communicated by J. A. Fleming, F.E.S., received June 10, read June 12, 1902.) Proceedings of the Royal Society of London (volume 70), pp. 341–44 or hysteresis magnetic detector,"Hertzian Wave Telegraphy: Lecture III", delivered by J. A. Fleming on March 16, 1903, Society of Arts (Great Britain), Journal of the Society of Arts (volume 51), August 7, 1903, [https://books.google.com/books?id=12NhAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA761 p. 761] was developed further by Marconi and was successfully used in his early transatlantic work (1902) and in many of the smaller stations for a number of years.Hayward, Charles B. (1918) How to Become a Wireless Operator, American technical society, [https://books.google.com/books?id=w4I8AAAAYAAJ&pg=PA202 p. 202]"New Marconi Wireless Telegraph Apparatus", The Electrical World and Engineer (volume 40), July 19, 1902, [https://books.google.com/books?id=e15NAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA91 p. 91] In 1902, a Marconi station was established in the village of Crookhaven, County Cork, Ireland to provide marine radio communications to ships arriving from the Americas. A ship's master could contact shipping line agents ashore to enquire which port was to receive their cargo without the need to come ashore at what was the first port of landfall.{{cite web|url=http://www.mizenhead.net/marconi.html |title=Marconi in Crookhaven|publisher=Mizen Head Signal Station Visitor Centre (mizenhead.net)| access-date=2018-02-06}} Ireland was also, due to its western location, to play a key role in early efforts to send trans-Atlantic messages. Marconi transmitted from his station in Glace Bay, Nova Scotia, Canada across the Atlantic, and on 18 January 1903 a Marconi station sent a message of greetings from Theodore Roosevelt, the President of the United States, to the King of the United Kingdom, marking the first transatlantic radio transmission originating in the United States.{{fact|date=July 2022}}

File:Cunard Daily Bulletin.jpg

In 1904, Marconi inaugurated an ocean daily newspaper, the Cunard Daily Bulletin, on the {{RMS|Campania}}. At the start, passing events were printed in a little pamphlet of four pages called the Cunard Bulletin. The title would read Cunard Daily Bulletin, with subheads for "Marconigrams Direct to the Ship."[https://books.google.com/books?id=Z4giAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA389 "Floating Cities and Their News Service"] by Nick J. Quick, The Inland Printer (volume 38), December 1906, p. 389 All the passenger ships of the Cunard Company were fitted with Marconi's system of wireless telegraphy, by means of which constant communication was kept up, either with other ships or with land stations on the eastern or western hemisphere. The {{RMS|Lucania}}, in October 1903, with Marconi on board, was the first vessel to hold communications with both sides of the Atlantic. The Cunard Daily Bulletin, a 32-page illustrated paper published on board these ships, recorded news received by wireless telegraphy, and was the first ocean newspaper. In August 1903, an agreement was made with the British Government by which the Cunard Co. were to build two steamers, to be, with all other Cunard ships, at the disposal of the British Admiralty for hire or purchase whenever they might be required, the Government lending the company £2,600,000 to build the ships and granting them a subsidy of £150,000 a year. One was the {{RMS|Lusitania}} and another was the {{RMS|Mauretania|1906|6}}.Whitaker, Joseph (1907) [https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=njp.32101045794896&view=1up&seq=749 "The Cunard Steamship Company, Ltd."], An Almanack For the Year of Our Lord [...] (volume 39), p. 739

Marconi was awarded the 1909 Nobel Prize in Physics with Karl Ferdinand Braun for their contributions to the development of wireless telegraphy. Marconi's demonstrations of the use of radio for wireless communications, equipping ships with life saving wireless communications,United States., & Smith, W. A. (1912). [https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=nyp.33433006539682&view=1up&seq=7 "'Titanic' Disaster"] (Hearing before a subcommittee of the Committee on Commerce, United States Senate : Sixty-second Congress, second session, pursuant to S. Res. 283, directing the Committee to investigate the causes leading to the wreck of the White Star liner "Titanic"), April 19–May 25, 1912, Washington [D.C.: G.P.O.] establishing the first transatlantic radio service,In December 1902, he established wireless telegraphic communication between Cape Breton, Canada and England, the first message inaugurating the system being transmitted from the Governor General of Canada to King Edward VII, and a few weeks later a message inaugurating wireless connection between America (Cape Cod, Massachusetts) and Cornwall, England was transmitted from the President of the United States to the King of England. ([https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=hvd.32044080602139&view=1up&seq=724 "Wireless telegraphy"], Encyclopaedia of Ships and Shipping edited by Herbert B. Mason. The Shipping Encyclopaedia, 1908, pp. 686–88.) and building the first stations for the British shortwave service, have marked his place in history.{{fact|date=July 2022}}

In June and July 1923, Marconi's shortwave transmissions took place at night on 97 meters from Poldhu Wireless Station, Cornwall, to his yacht Elettra in the Cape Verde Islands. In September 1924, Marconi transmitted during daytime and nighttime on 32 meters from Poldhu to his yacht in Beirut. In July 1924, Marconi entered into contracts with the British General Post Office (GPO) to install telegraphy circuits from London to Australia, India, South Africa and Canada as the main element of the Imperial Wireless Chain. The UK-to-Canada shortwave "Beam Wireless Service" went into commercial operation on 25 October 1926. Beam Wireless Services from the UK to Australia, South Africa and India went into service in 1927. Electronic components for the system were built at Marconi's New Street wireless factory in Chelmsford.[http://homepages.tesco.net/~martin.batesuk/marconi/sections_added_1912-1980.htm "The Marconi Company Departments 1912–1970"] by Martin Bates, accessed 2010-10-04 {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101020155019/http://homepages.tesco.net/~martin.batesuk/marconi/sections_added_1912-1980.htm |date=October 20, 2010 }}

=Braun=

File:Ferdinand_Braun.jpg]]

File:Braun Radiant Energy US750429.png {{US patent|750429}}]]

Ferdinand Braun's major contributions were the introduction of a closed tuned circuit in the generating part of the transmitter, and its separation from the radiating part (the antenna) by means of inductive coupling,{{cite book

| last1= Sarkar

| first1= T. K.

| last2= Mailloux

| first2= Robert

| last3= Oliner

| first3= Arthur A.

| title= History of Wireless

| publisher= John Wiley and Sons

| date= 2006

| url= https://archive.org/stream/HistoryOfWireless#page/n260/mode/2up

| isbn= 978-0471783015

}}{{rp|p.90,358-359}} and later on the usage of crystals for receiving purposes. Braun experimented at first at the University of Strasbourg. Braun had written extensively on wireless subjects and was well known through his many contributions to the Electrician and other scientific journals.[https://books.google.com/books?id=DEfOAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA709 "Dr. Braun, Famous German Scientist, Dead"], The Wireless Age (volume 5), June 1918, pp. 709–10 In 1899, he would apply for the patents, Electro telegraphy by means of condensers and induction coils and Wireless electro transmission of signals over surfaces.[https://books.google.com/books?id=9LPmAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA159 "Provisional Patents, 1899"], The Electrical Engineer (volume 23) February 3, 1899, p. 159.

Pioneers working on wireless devices eventually came to a limit of distance they could cover. Connecting the antenna directly to the spark gap produced only a heavily damped pulse train. There were only a few cycles before oscillations ceased. Braun's circuit afforded a much longer sustained oscillation because the energy encountered less loss swinging between coil and Leyden Jars.{{rp|p.358}} Also, by means of inductive antenna couplingZenneck, Jonathan (1915) Wireless Telegraphy, [https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.212404/page/n195 p. 175] the radiator was matched to the generator.{{fact|date=July 2022}}

In spring 1899 Braun, accompanied by his colleagues Cantor and Zenneck, went to Cuxhaven to continue their experiments at the North Sea. On February 6, 1899, he would apply for the United States Patent, {{US patent|0750429|Wireless Electric Transmission of Signals Over Surfaces}}. Not before long he bridged a distance of 42 km to the city of Mutzing. On 24 September 1900 radio telegraphy signals were exchanged regularly with the island of Heligoland over a distance of 62 km. Lightvessels in the river Elbe and a coast station at Cuxhaven commenced a regular radio telegraph service.

By 1904, the closed circuit system of wireless telegraphy, connected with the name of Braun, was well known and generally adopted in principle. The results of Braun's experiments, published in the Electrician,{{citation needed|date=July 2024}} possess interest, apart from the method employed. Braun showed how the problem could be satisfactorily and economically solved. The closed circuit oscillator has the advantage, as was known, of being able to draw upon the kinetic energy in the oscillator circuit, and thus, because such a circuit can be given a much greater capacity than can be obtained with a radiating aerial alone, much more energy can be stored up and radiated by its employment. The emission is also prolonged, both results tending towards the attainment of the much desired train of undamped waves. The energy available, though greater than with the open system, was still inconsiderable unless very high potentials, with the attendant drawbacks, were used.Marconi had adopted this way of increasing the available energy, the potentials attainable by his now familiar arrangement being exceedingly high, but the method is wasteful owing to the length of spark gap used. Braun avoided the use of extremely high potentials for charging the gap and also makes use of a less wasteful gap by sub-dividing it.This method was described by Braun some time ago.{{citation needed|date=July 2024}} The chief point in his new arrangement, however, is not the sub-division of the gap merely but their arrangement, by which they are charged in parallel, at low voltages, and discharge in series. The Nobel Prize awarded to Braun in 1909 depicts this design.{{cite web|url=http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1909/braun-bio.html |title=Ferdinand Braun – Biographical|publisher=Alfred Nobel Memorial Foundation (nobelprize.org) |access-date=2012-04-15}} Braun also discovered the principle behind the phased array antenna,{{Cite book |last1=Heald |first1=George |title=Low Frequency Radio Astronomy and the LOFAR Observatory |last2=McKean |first2=John |last3=Pizzo |first3=Roberto |publisher=Springer |year=2018 |isbn=9783319234342 |pages=5}} which led to the development of smart antennas and MIMO, in 1905.

=Stone Stone=

File:JohnStoneStone1910.png

John Stone Stone labored as an early telephone engineer and was influential in developing wireless communication technology, and obtained dozens of key patents in the field of "space telegraphy". Patents of Stone for radio, together with their equivalents in other countries, form a very voluminous contribution to the patent literature of the subject. More than seventy United States patents have been granted to this patentee alone. In many cases these specifications are learned contributions to the literature of the subject, filled with valuable references to other sources of information.Fleming (1908) [https://books.google.com/books?id=LABVAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA520 p. 520]

Stone has had issued to him a large number of patents embracing a method for impressing oscillations on a radiator system and emitting the energy in the form of waves of predetermined length whatever may be the electrical dimensions of the oscillator.Collins, A. Frederick (1905) Wireless Telegraphy: Its History, Theory and Practice, [https://archive.org/details/wirelesstelegra00collgoog/page/n180 p. 164] On February 8, 1900, he filed for a selective system in {{US patent|714756}}. In this system, two simple circuits are associated inductively, each having an independent degree of freedom, and in which the restoration of electric oscillations to zero potential the currents are superimposed, giving rise to compound harmonic currents which permit the resonator system to be syntonized with precision to the oscillator. Stone's system, as stated in {{US patent|714,831}}, developed free or unguided simple harmonic electromagnetic signal waves of a definite frequency to the exclusion of the energy of signal waves of other frequencies, and an elevated conductor and means for developing therein forced simple electric vibrations of corresponding frequency.Maver (1904) [https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015075085822&view=1up&seq=136 p. 126] In these patents Stone devised a multiple inductive oscillation circuit with the object of forcing on the antenna circuit a single oscillation of definite frequency. In the system for receiving the energy of free or unguided simple harmonic electromagnetic signal waves of a definite frequency to the exclusion of the energy of signal waves of other frequencies, he claimed an elevated conductor and a resonant circuit associated with said conductor and attuned to the frequency of the waves, the energy of which is to be received. A coherer made on what is called the Stone systemStanley, Rupert (1919) Text-book on Wireless Telegraphy, Longmans, Green, [https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015013912905&view=1up&seq=326 p. 300] was employed in some of the portable wireless outfits of the United States Army. The Stone Coherer has two small steel plugs between which are placed loosely packed carbon granules. This is a self-decohering device; though not as sensitive as other forms of detectors it is well suited to the rough usage of portable outfits.

=Naval wireless=

==Royal Navy==

{{See|Henry Jackson (Royal Navy officer)}}

In 1897, recently promoted Royal Navy Captain Henry Jackson became the first person to achieve ship-to-ship wireless communications and demonstrated continuous communication with another vessel up to three miles away.{{cite web|url=http://www.g0akh.f2s.com/SADARC/jackson.php|title=Captain Henry Jackson's Radio Experiments|publisher=Saltash & District Amateur Radio Club|access-date=18 January 2019}} {{HMS|Hector|1862|6}} became the first British warship to have wireless telegraphy installed when she conducted the first trials of the new equipment for the Royal Navy.The ship was sold for scrap in 1905.{{cite book|last=Ballard |first=G. A., Admiral |title=The Black Battlefleet |year=1980 |publisher=Naval Institute Press |location=Annapolis, MD |isbn=978-0870219245 }} pp. 158–59 Starting in December 1899, HMS Hector and {{HMS|Jaseur}} were outfitted with wireless equipment.{{cite book |last1=Burns |first1=Russell W. |title=Communications: An International History of the Formative Years |date=2004 |publisher=IET |location=London |page=350 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7eUUy8-VvwoC |access-date=18 January 2019|isbn=9780863413278 }} On 25 January 1901, HMS Jaseur received signals from the Marconi transmitter on the Isle of Wight and from HMS Hector (25 January).Captain Henry Jackson developed the tuned receiver.

==US Navy==

In 1899 the United States Navy Board issued a report on the results of investigations of the Marconi system of wireless telegraphy.[https://archive.org/details/proceedingsunit34instgoog/page/n931 "Notes on the Marconi Wireless Telegraph"] by Lieut. J. B. Blish, U. S. N., The Proceedings of the United States Naval Institute (volume 25), December 1899, pp. 857–64 The report noted that the system was well adapted for use in squadron signalling, under conditions of rain, fog, darkness and motion of speed although dampness affected the performance."Wireless Telegraphy" by J. W. Reading, Locomotive Engineers Journal (volume 44), [https://books.google.com/books?id=NKaZAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA77 p. 77] They also noted that when two stations were transmitting simultaneously both would be received and that the system had the potential to affect the compass. They reported ranges from {{convert|85|mi|km}} for large ships with tall masts ({{convert|43|m|ft|disp=comma}}) to {{convert|7|mi|km}} for smaller vessels. The board recommended that the system was given a trial by the United States Navy.{{fact|date=July 2022}}

Wireless telephony

{{Main|History of broadcasting}}

=Fessenden=

In late 1886, Reginald Fessenden began working directly for Thomas Edison at the inventor's new laboratory in West Orange, New Jersey. Fessenden quickly made major advances, especially in receiver design, as he worked to develop audio reception of signals. The United States Weather Bureau began, early in 1900, a systematic course of experimentation in wireless telegraphy, employing him as a specialist.Sewall (1904) [https://archive.org/details/wirelesstelegra00sewagoog/page/n86 pp. 66–71] Fessenden evolved the heterodyne principle here where two signals combined to produce a third signal.

In 1900, construction began on a large radio transmitting alternator. Fessenden, experimenting with a high-frequency spark transmitter, successfully transmitted speech on 23 December 1900, over a distance of about {{convert|1.6|km|mi}}, the first audio radio transmission. Early in 1901 the Weather Bureau officially installed Fessenden at Wier's Point, Roanoke Island, North Carolina, and he made experimental transmissions across water to a station located about {{convert|5|mi|km}} west of Cape Hatteras, the distance between the two stations being roughly {{convert|50|mi|km}}. An alternator of 1 kW output at 10 kilohertz was built in 1902. The credit for the development of this machine is due to Charles Proteus Steinmetz, Caryl D. Haskins, Ernst Alexanderson, John T. H. Dempster, Henry Geisenhoner, Adam Stein, Jr., and F. P. Mansbendel.

In a paper written by Fessenden in 1902, it was asserted that important advances had been made, one of which was overcoming largely the loss of energy experienced in other systems. In an interview with a New York Journal correspondent, Fessenden stated that in his early apparatus he did not use an air transformer at the sending end, nor a concentric cylinder for emitters and antennae,Such as were employed by the Marconi Company and had used capacity, but arranged in a manner entirely different from that in other systems, and that he did not employ a coherer or any form of imperfect contact. Fessenden asserted that he had paid particular attention to selective and multiplex systems, and was well satisfied with the results in that direction. On 12 August 1902, 13 patents were issued to Fessenden, covering various methods, devices, and systems for signaling without wires. These patents involved many new principles, the chef-d'oeuvre of which was a method for distributing capacity and inductance instead of localizing these coefficients of the oscillator as in previous systems.

File:Brant rock radio tower 1910.jpg radio tower (1910)]]

By the summer of 1906, a machine producing 50 kilohertz was installed at the Brant Rock station, and in the fall of 1906, what was called an electric alternating dynamo was working regularly at 75 kilohertz, with an output of 0.5 kW. FessendenAssisted by H. R. Hadfield, J. W. Lee, F. P. Mansbendel, G. Davis, M. L. Wesco, A. Stein, Jr., H. Sparks, and Guv Hill. used this for wireless telephoning to Plymouth, Massachusetts, a distance of approximately {{convert|11|mi|km}}. In the following year machines were constructed having a frequency of 96 kilohertzThe regular operating frequency would be 81.7 kilohertz and outputs of 1 kW and 2 kW. Fessenden believed that the damped wave-coherer system was essentially and fundamentally incapable of development into a practical system. He would employ a two-phase high frequency alternator methodContained in {{US patent|793649}} "Signaling by electromagnetic waves" and the continuous production of wavesContained in {{US patent|793649}} "Signaling by electromagnetic waves, {{US patent|706,747}} "Apparatus for signaling by electromagnetic waves", {{US patent|706,742}} "wireless signaling" and {{US patent|727,747}} with changing constants of sending circuit.Governing by resonance was invented and patented by Kempster B. Miller, {{US patent|559,187}}, "Electric governor", February 25, 1896. Fessenden would also use duplex and multiplex commutator methods.Contained in {{US patent|793,652}} "Signaling by electromagnetic waves" On 11 December 1906, operation of the wireless transmission in conjunction with the wire lines took place.Fessenden's account of his research included the following humorous anecdote:
"An amusing instance may be mentioned as illustrating the incredulity with which the wireless telephone was received. Some of the local papers having published an account of the experiments with the schooner above referred to the following appeared under the heading 'Current News and Notes' in the columns of a prominent technical journal. (Nov. 10, 1906. [https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uva.x030741293&view=1up&seq=285 "A New Fish Story"], Electrical World, November 10, 1906, p. 909)

'A New Fish Story. — It is stated from Massachusetts that the wireless telephone has successfully entered into the deep sea fishing industry. For the last week experiments have been conducted by the wireless telegraph station at Brant Rock, which is equipped with a wireless telephone, with a small vessel stationed in the fleet of the South Shore fishermen, twelve miles out in Massachusetts Bay. Recently, it is asserted, the fishermen wished to learn the prices ruling in the Boston market. The operator on the wireless fitted boat called up Brant Rock and telephoned the fishermen's request. The land operator asked Boston by wire and the answer was forwarded back to the fishermen. This is a rather fishy fish story.'

"The doubt expressed was, however, only natural. I remember the astonishment displayed by one of the company's new operators some months previously on placing the receiving telephone to his head while the vessel was almost out of sight of land and hearing the operator at the land station call his name and begin to talk to him." (Fessenden (1908) [https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015068171985&view=1up&seq=611 pp. 579–80]) In July 1907 the range was considerably extended and speech was successfully transmitted between Brant Rock and Jamaica, on Long Island, a distance of nearly {{convert|200|mi|km}}, in daylight and mostly over land,[https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=njp.32101050971041&view=1up&seq=1001 "Long Distance Wireless Telephony"] by Reginald Fessenden, The Electrician, October 4, 1907, pp. 985–89. the mast at Jamaica being approximately {{convert|180|ft|m}} high.

=Fleming=

In November 1904, the English physicist John Ambrose Fleming invented the two-electrode vacuum-tube rectifier, which he called the Fleming oscillation valve.Van der Bijl, Hendrik Johannes (1920) The Thermionic Vacuum Tube and its Applications, [https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.$b669293&view=1up&seq=135 pp. 111–12] for which he obtained GB patent 24850 and {{US patent|803684}}.Fleming Valve patent {{US patent|803684}} "Instrument for converting alternating electric currents into continuous currents". It was also called a thermionic valve, vacuum diode, kenotron, and thermionic tube. This "Fleming Valve" was sensitive and reliable, and so it replaced the crystal diode used in receivers used for long-distance wireless communication. It had an advantage, that it could not be permanently injured or set out of adjustment by any exceptionally strong stray signal, such as those due to atmospheric electricity.Fleming, John Ambrose (1914) The Wonders of Wireless Telegraphy: Explained in Simple Terms for the Non-technical Reader. Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, [https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.b3387880&view=1up&seq=165 p. 149] Fleming earned a Hughes Medal in 1910 for his electronic achievements. Marconi used this device as a radio detector.{{When|date=January 2011}}

The Supreme Court of the United States would eventually invalidate the US patent because of an improper disclaimer and, additionally, maintained the technology in the patent was known art when filed.Wunsch, A. David (November 1998) [http://www.mercurians.org/1998_fall/misreading.htm "Misreading the Supreme Court: A Puzzling Chapter in the History of Radio"], Society for the History of Technology (mercurians.org) This invention was the first vacuum tube. Fleming's diode was used in radio receivers for many decades afterward, until it was superseded by improved solid state electronic technology more than 50 years later.

=De Forest=

Lee De ForestDe Forest, Lee (1906) [https://archive.org/details/transactions56unkngoog/page/n727 "The Audion: A New Receiver for Wireless Telegraphy"], Transactions of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers, October 26, 1906, pp. 735–79De Forest, Lee (1913) [https://books.google.com/books?id=uEASAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA15 "The Audion—Detector and Amplifier"], Proceedings of the Institute of Radio Engineers (volume 2), pp. 15–36[https://books.google.com/books?id=FwQ9AAAAYAAJ&pg=PA75 "Statement of Dr. Lee de Forest, Radio Telephone Company"] Hearings before a subcommittee of the Committee on Naval Affairs of the House of Representatives on H.J. Resolution 95: A bill to regulate and control the use of wireless telegraphy and wireless telephony. Washington: Gov. Print. Office, 1910, pp. 75–78 had an interest in wireless telegraphy, and he invented the Audion, initially a diode tube, in 1906, and subsequently a triode version in 1908. He was president and secretary of the De Forest Radio Telephone and Telegraph Company (1913).Industrial plant was located at 1391 Sedgwick Avenue in Bronx Borough, New York City.Charles Gilbert was the treasurer of the company. The De Forest System was adopted by the United States Government, and had been demonstrated to other Governments including those of Great Britain, Denmark, Germany, Russia, and British Indies, all of which purchased De Forest apparatus previous to the Great War. De Forest is one of the fathers of the "electronic age", as the Audion helped to usher in the widespread use of electronics.Weiss, G., & Leonard, J. W. (1920) [https://books.google.com/books?id=JRQ9AAAAYAAJ&pg=PA254 "De Forest Radio Telephone and Telegraph Company"], America's Maritime Progress, New York: New York marine news Co., p. 254.

De Forest made the Audion tube from a vacuum tube. He also made the "Oscillion", an undamped wave transmitter. He developed the De Forest method of wireless telegraphy and founded the American De Forest Wireless Telegraph Company. De Forest was a distinguished electrical engineer and the foremost American contributor to the development of wireless telegraphy and telephony. The elements of his device take relatively weak electrical signals and amplify them. The Audion Detector, Audion Amplifier, and the "Oscillion" transmitter had furthered the radio art and the transmission of written or audible speech. In World War I, the De Forest system was a factor in the efficiency of the United States Signal Service, and was also installed by the United States Government in Alaska.

Radio invention timeline

{{Main|Timeline of radio}}

Below is a brief selection of important events and individuals related to the development of radio, from 1860 to 1910.Hong, Sungook (2001) Wireless: From Marconi's Black-box to the Audion, MIT Press, page 9

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DateFormat = YYYY

Period = from:1860 till:1910

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ScaleMajor = unit:year increment:10 start:1860

ScaleMinor = unit:year increment:1 start:1860

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at:1864 fontsize:S text:"Maxwell predicts electromagnetic (EM) waves.

at:1879 fontsize:S text:"Hughes demonstrates transmission of signals over 460m."

at:1887 fontsize:S text:"Hertz publishes research experiments confirming Maxwell's theory in the journal Annalen der Physik."

at:1890 fontsize:S text:"Branly demonstrates the coherer as a radio wave detector."

at:1892 fontsize:S text:"William Crookes suggests Hertzian waves could be used in wireless telegraphy"

at:1893 fontsize:S text:"Tesla demonstrates his wireless power techniques at St. Louis, Missouri."

at:1894 fontsize:S text:"Bose ignited gunpowder and rang a bell at a distance in Calcutta."

at:1895 fontsize:S text:"Popov presents his radio receiver to the Russian Physical and Chemical Society. Marconi transmits radio signals for about 1.5 miles (2.4 km)"

at:1897 fontsize:S text:"Marconi sends wireless signals from Salisbury Plain to Bath, a distance of 34 miles (55 km)."

at:1899 fontsize:S text:"Braun transmits 42 km. Popov transmits 130 miles."

at:1900 fontsize:S text:"Fessenden makes the first audio radio transmission."

at:1901 fontsize:S text:"Marconi reports transatlantic transmission."

at:1902 fontsize:S text:"Marconi station in Canada became the first radio message to cross the Atlantic from North America."

at:1906 fontsize:S text:"Fessenden transmits audio (radio telephony) over a distance of approximately 11 miles (18 km)."

at:1909 fontsize:S text:"Braun and Marconi receive Nobel Prize in physics, 'in recognition of their contributions to the development of wireless telegraphy'."

See also

Footnotes

{{Reflist|30em}}

Further reading

  • Anderson, L.I., "Priority in the Invention of Radio: Tesla vs. Marconi", Antique Wireless Association Monograph No. 4, March, 1980.
  • Anderson, L.I., "John Stone Stone on Nikola Tesla's Priority in Radio and Continuous-Wave Radiofrequency Apparatus", The AWA Review, Vol. 1, 1986, pp. 18–41.
  • Brand, W.E., "Rereading the Supreme Court: Tesla's Invention of Radio", Antenna, Volume 11 No. 2, May 1998, Society for the History of Technology
  • Lauer, H., & Brown, H. L. (1919). [https://books.google.com/books?id=XTFLAAAAMAAJ Radio engineering principles]. New York: McGraw-Hill book company; [etc., etc.]
  • Rockman, H. B. (2004). [https://books.google.com/books?id=6B88P-32IIQC Intellectual property law for engineers and scientists]. New York [u.a.: IEEE Press].